So are you saying most GMs suck at the draft, or that the returns on draft picks mostly suck?
I would say that my point is that the long-term return on draft picks mostly sucks. Most players who get drafted play for the team that drafted them for a couple of years and then leave in free agency. Obviously there are exceptions, but when you trace forward what a team has in exchange for a draft pick, particularly 5 years down the line, very often there's little to no value remaining. The value, as it were, has already been accrued in the playing time that the team got from the player.
For our sake, it could be pointed out that Fox has signed a five-year extension, meaning at the moment we have 9 years worth of value from that pick. Cousins was traded for (among other things) Buddy, who has a four-year extension himself, and via the Zach Collilns-Justin Jackson route, Harrison Barnes, who has three years on his current deal. That's a 2010 pick that is currently still paying dividends, giving us seven more seasons worth of top rotation players (if somehow Buddy isn't starting) through 2024. It happens.
But when players leave in free agency (outside of the relatively uncommon S&T) that's it. That's the end of the asset line. Bogdanovic's asset line may end for the Kings in two days, but we don't really know how that will turn out yet. And, although it was claimed that if we don't match Bogdan, it would end the asset line for the #8 pick in 2016, that's actually not correct. That asset line included the #35 pick this year, which was traded for Woodard and a 2022 second (lesser of DET/CHI). So that asset line is still chugging along even without Bogdan.